User blog:JohnnyOTGS/The World's Longest Road Trip, can it be done?
Hello everybody and welcome to another Episode of JohnnyTalk. Today we are going to talk about the feasibility of the World's Longest road trip. We live (from our viewpoint) a very large planet (around 18,000 miles long), it is the destiny of Mankind to move from place to place, since our first ancestors traveled out of Africa and to other Continents such as Europe, Asia, North and South America and eventually Australia we have came up with other ways to get from Point A to Point B. Imagine for a while that you live in.... Buenos Aires, and you want to travel to... Paris. Of course, you can just fly to Paris, book a flight and you'll reach your destination in just 8 hours. But what if you wanted to drive there instead? Of course, for the sake of this blog let's say we remove all of the political and economical obstacles such as Gasoline, stopping to rest, and Passports. Of course you're starting point will be where you Hypothetically live: Buenos Aires. Of course you take all of the city's roads until you reach the first main highway of your trip: The Pan American Highway which goes from Buenos Aires to Mexico. Of course, you travel along the Pan-American Highway and go from Argentina to Chile, Bolivia, Peru and into Columbia. But as you get to the Border of Columbia and Panama, you'll face your first "natural" obstacle: The Darien Gap. The Darien Gap is a 100 Mile wide area full of swamp, trees and Mountains. This is what actually separates the Pan-American Highway and keeps it from connecting North America to South America. There were Proposals to try to "close" this gap (pun intended) but of course there are several factors that make this next to impossible to actually do. 1. Money: No doubt that this proposal to connect the highway is expensive. 2. Unstable Terrain: The terrain of the Darien Gap is unstable for road construction, one of the reasons for it is that the gap has mostly swamp and there are some high, rugged mountains in the area as well. 3. Local Natives: The Native people that live in this gap would be none too pleased with some concrete trail cutting through their beloved land. There is also a few environmental issues as well and even the potential of bringing on new diseases into the more densly populated nations. A feat to cross the Darien Gap by an automobile was indeed tried in 1985 when a team of 2 people traveled the Darien Gap on a CJ-5 Jeep. Despite the gap being 100 Miles across, the trip was around 125 Miles and took 741 Days (over 2 years) to complete. But let's say you did cross this gap in a "short period of time" By crossing the Darien Gap, you will continue along the Pan-American Highway as you travel across the Central American nations such as Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and eventually Mexico until you reach the end of the Highway in a town of Laredo. From the Mexican part of the town, you cross into the northern part of town in Texas, so now you're in the US of A. From Laredo, you find the US Interstate 35: a 1,600 Mile long highway that goes all the way north into Duluth, Minnesota, after some back roads, you'll find yourself in Canada, you'll take some more back roads until you take the Trans-Canadian Highway (which is around 5,000 miles long, making it one of the World's longest), but you only need to drive it around half the distance until you reach Dawson Creek (not Dawson's Creek) which is in British Columbia, from there you'll try to find the ALCAN Highway: A highway that was built during World War 2 in an attempt to increase security for both Canada and the USA. After driving the ALCAN Highway to it's end which is in Delta Junction, Alaska. Now ths is where the trip becomes a challenge again not just due to the northern regions of Alaska where (quite litterally) are no roads, but let's say you got passed that and reached the fourthest western town in the USA: Nome. Here comes another natural obstacle, this time the Bering Straight. Consisting of the most treacherous seas in the world, the Bering Straight is (ironically) the shortest route across the Pacific Ocean, this area is also where the "Land Bridge" was during the last known Ice Age. Speaking of Bridges, there has been (historically) proposals to try to create a bridge that would allow anybody to cross into Alaska and into Russia. Russian Tsar Nicholas The 2nd originally proposed this idea in 1890, because this was at a time before cars were mass produced this particular bridge was going to be a rail bridge. But the Russian Revolution, the first World War and the Russian Civil War had "de-railed" this proposal. As the Soviets heard of the ALCAN Highway, they wanted to extend the highway so it can be a viable trade route into Russia, but whether it would be open to public traffic is still unclear. The Cold War had came and any idea for a Bering Highway was all but scrapped, that is until that war was over and now proposals to build a Bering Highway is back on the table, however the proposals would be extremely expensive for both nations and both nations would have to build more highways to connect this highway. But, let's say you have crossed the Bering Straight. Well, you will *still* have to deal with a region where there are no roads. It is also well known that Siberia is also the harshest in the winter (with temperatures during the day being around -35 degrees) so its best that you wait until the warm months (like the summer) before you get into Siberia. You drive to the Siberian town of Yukutsk. Which is (another) obstacle gets in your way: a river that separates the town from the highway you should go to next: M-56. Fortunately, there's a ferry service that will take you to the highway, though a bridge is supposed to be constructed there hopefully in the next few years. As you get onto M-56, you drive south to the Trans-Siberian Highway, the 2nd longest highway in the world, spanning 6,800 miles only the Australian Highway 1 is longer at 9,000 Miles. But you only need to travel it for about 6,600 miles until you reach Moscow. From Moscow, you take the European Highway system and on to the highway E-30 ''from Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and to The Netherlands, and then you get off the highway and onto ''E-19. And, congratulations. You reached your final destination: Paris. Now, with this road trip, it is around 16,000 Miles long. So, if you were to drive say 60 MPH for around 12 Hours a day, it'll take you 22 days (over 3 weeks) to reach Paris. Now, would you be able to pull off this road trip? Unfortunately, no. Not only would it take a very, very long time. But there are also a lot of nations you must go through in both Central America and Europe. Not to mention that there are natural obstacles along the way which are quite literally impassible within a day's travel, and it is more cost effective to just fly from Buenos Aires to Paris. That is all for this blog page, don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out. Category:Blog posts